I come from a Southern, onion-loving family.
My mother loved Vidalia onion sandwiches. She made them on Roman Meal bread with a smear of Hellman’s mayonnaise and a thick slice of the sweet, raw onion. In her later years, she took to eating the onions like apples.
My brother won the ramp-eating contest in Waynesville, North Carolina not long after he moved there in the mid-70s from Atlanta. I’m sure those well-seasoned locals were taken by surprise when this city kid showed up and mowed through a record number of those gut-searing raw, wild onions with hardly a wince of pain. He gave me one once, fresh out of the ground, and the burn lasted for hours...